The present invention relates to a dealing port mechanism for depositing and dispensing banknotes in a banknote depositing and dispensing machine having the function of handling deposited banknotes and of handling banknotes to be dispensed, and more particularly to an improvement for simplifying the design of a mechanism necessary for depositing and dispensing banknotes and of a mechanism for opening and closing dealing ports, as well as for facilitating the handling thereof by clients.
Today, numerous banknote depositing and dispensing machines having the function of handling deposited banknotes and of dispensing banknotes are used.
In the early days of development, such banknote depositing and dispensing machines were so arranged that a handling machine used exclusively for depositing and a handling machine used exclusively for dispensing were merely arranged and housed together in a frame, and, as for dealing ports, one used exclusively for depositing (depositing port) and one used exclusively for dispensing (dispensing port) were arranged separately and apart from each other.
However, if the depositing port and the dispensing port are arranged apart from each other, in cases where the handling of deposited banknotes and the dispensing of banknotes are carried out continuously, a client (operator) had to give his attention to both dealing ports, and also had to change his posture or move depending on whether he wished to effect a depositing or a dispensing operation. Thus, such an arrangement presented the client with some difficulty since the handling efficiency was poor.
In addition, if a handling machine used exclusively for depositing and a handling machine used exclusively for dispensing are simply arranged and housed together in one frame, a deposited banknote storage section for storing deposited banknotes and a dispensing banknote storage section for storing banknotes ready for dispensing are both required to have a capacity equivalent to that of a conventional machine used exclusively for depositing or a machine used exclusively for dispensing, so that there was a problem in that the unavoidable tendency was for the overall machine to become large in size.
In recent years, therefore, a banknote depositing and dispensing machine has been developed which is adapted to be capable of effecting depositing and dispensing of banknotes from a single dealing port by combining the depositing port with the dispensing port, thus facilitating handling by clients. Also, another type of banknote depositing and dispensing machine has been developed in which the capacities of the deposited banknote storage section and the dispensing banknote storage section are reduced by circulating deposited banknotes to the dispensing banknote storage section so as to make immediate use of the deposited banknotes as payable ones, thereby making the machine compact.
It is true that, if an arrangement is made to effect depositing and dispensing of banknotes from a single dealing port, as described above, the machine is easy to handle and is convenient from the standpoint of the clients. On the other hand, however, it becomes necessary to make reversible the conveying direction of a conveying passage communicated with the dealing port, or to provide a delivery mechanism for delivering one by one banknotes deposited in the dealing port for the purposes of discrimination and counting, thereby making it necessary to enable the conveying passage communicated with the dealing port to carry out both the function of handling deposited bills and of dispensing bills. Hence, there has been a drawback in that the peripheral mechanisms of the dealing port which are necessary for depositing and dispensing operations unnecessarily become overly complicated.